Chapter Six
Serena, having worked up the courage to fly at the armed intruder, whom she’d seen only in shadow and silhouette as he’d crept down the stairs, collapsed on Tamar’s chest in utter relief.
After a stunned instant, his arms wrapped around her, strong and warm and comforting. Something touched her hair—his chin, perhaps, or his lips.
“There,” he murmured. “I have you. I have you.” He stroked her hair once, then drew her head back. “Serena, are you alone here? Was that you who opened the cellar door?”
“Yes, I wanted to see if anything was moving outside, and then I thought I heard something. Someone breathing.”
“Me, probably,” he said ruefully. “It never entered my head it would be you creeping about in the middle of the night.”
“At least I live here,” she retorted.
“Fair point,” he allowed. “Only why didn’t you lock the cellar door behind you? So you could hit me with that very lethal looking poker?”
“No, it doesn’t lock from the inside. I was going to hide, only you followed me too quickly and I was still in the middle of the cellar when I saw you coming down. I thought I might be able to knock you out with the poker.”
“Optimistic,” he observed.
“And then,” she continued, scowling, “tie you up before you came round. Then Jem could make you tell us everything.”
He peered over her head into the darkness again. “Is Jem here, too?”
“Oh no. I meant to speak to him in the morning.”
Now that she was no longer frightened, she began to realize how little she was wearing—nothing but her night rail—and how sinfully delicious it felt to be held so close to him. Her body seemed to be singing and purring for more at the same time.
“Well, it was a good plan,” he said generously, “though I’m not sorry to have escaped the poker. Only, perhaps the next time you go setting traps for armed smugglers, you should wear more than your nightgown and bring a few armed, preferably large, male friends.”
She shoved at his chest. “You’re laughing at me.”
He smiled. “No, I’m still delighting in you.”
Although his arms had loosened a little, she hadn’t pulled free. She was alone with him in the semi-darkness, wearing hardly anything and she found it difficult to breathe.
She tilted her chin. “I thought you’d walked away.”
“I have. I can still delight. And protect.”
She licked her dry lips. He followed the movement with a peculiar hunger that made her stomach squirm. Despite the chill of the cellar, heat surged through her.
She swallowed. “Is it necessary to hold me quite so close in order to do so?”
“It helps,” he said huskily. “With the delight. Not so much with protection.” His hand was in her hair again, tilting up her face as he lowered his. His lips parted, and her stomach dived in anticipation. “Christ, you’re beautiful,” he whispered.
She melted, her eyes closing as his fingers fisted in her hair and his breath caressed her lips. And then he stilled. His breath was too quick, too shallow.
His hands fell away. “Serena, I can’t do this to you,” he said in anguish, stumbling back from her into the side of the staircase.
From sheer need, she followed. Rising on tiptoe, she seized his face between her hands and kissed him full on the mouth. Only then did fear swamp her, fear of what she’d done, fear of rejection. Of acceptance. He stared at her, breathing hard.
Then he seized her in his arms, hauling her against him. “One kiss,” he muttered, “just one more.”
And then her mouth was crushed beneath his in the kind of wild, devouring kiss she’d never imagined. At once rough and tender, it overwhelmed her, battering her with sensation and desires she barely understood. He held her nape, caressing, keeping her head in the position he wanted as he plundered her mouth.
With a sound like a sob, she threw her arms around his neck, and his grip tightened, grinding her hips and breasts into his hard body. She felt the shock of his erection against her abdomen, though it thrilled rather than appalled her.
He’d said one kiss, but it seemed it would never stop. She never wanted it to stop, even when his hands swept over her body, caressing her breasts and waist and hips and slid over her bottom.
Trembling and eager, she rejoiced in the storm she’d provoked, kissing him back with blind, instinctive passion. He seemed to like it, for he groaned, opening his mouth wider before he broke the kiss and dragged his lips across her jaw to her neck, where he paused, panting.
His heart pounded against her.
Very slowly, he lifted his head and stepped back. “You don’t even know, do you? What you do to me? What I wish to do to you…”
She swallowed. “I understand it more than I understand you walking away. If you like me.”
He laughed softly, deep in his throat. “If? Dear God…”
“You are a marquis, I am an earl’s daughter. It’s not even unsuitable.”
“You are possessed of a fortune. I’m possessed of a mountain of debt and three, if not four, dependent and expensive siblings. That is unsuitable. I will not hunt your fortune, Serena. Not yours.”
“The entire marriage mart is a fortune hunt,” she said impatiently. “Do you imagine Sir Arthur asked for my hand from undying love? Or that I accepted it for any reason other than settlements, position, and alliance with his family?”
“I can bring you none of these things.”
“I want none of them.” It was true. She’d just never allowed herself to acknowledge it before.
He dragged one hand through his hair. “Serena, no one wants alliance with my family. Except perhaps some filthy-rich cit who wants a title for his underbred daughter. God help her.”
She searched his eyes, frowning, desperate, the thrill of his recent embrace still tingling through her. “Then you are a fortune hunter? You just need a bigger fortune than mine.”
He closed his eyes. “I need a bigger fortune than yours.”
But she’d already seen the truth. “You’re lying,” she crowed. “Perhaps not about what you need, but certainly about what you want.”
His eyes gleamed. “If you challenge me again, I’ll take you on the cellar floor.”
Desire coursed through her. “No, you won’t,” she said unsteadily. “You’re a gentleman, Lord Tamar.”
He gave a twisted smile. “By my own lights at least. I doubt your brother would agree with you if he’d seen me manhandling you a moment ago. And I couldn’t blame him. Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. But in truth, she didn’t know. Those moments in his arms had shattered her, both emotionally and physically. She suspected she could now be hurt a great deal more. She understood she was playing with fire. And yet, nothing in the world had ever been so exciting, so important.
He said unsteadily, “You must be freezing.”
She was certainly shaking, though she didn’t know if it was from the cold or from his presence.
“I have a blanket,” she said, suddenly embarrassed by her immodest appearance, although considering his recent caresses, there wasn’t much he didn’t already know. Nevertheless, she turned from him, hurrying across the cellar to the little camp she’d made in the far corner, behind the large barrels of ale.
Seizing up the blanket, she swung it around her shoulders like armor.
But he’d followed her, with the candle, seen her little makeshift bed. “You were sleeping here,” he uttered, clearly appalled.
“Well, they’d never have seen me,” she said defensively. “And I might have learned something, if they’d only come tonight. Their barrels are over there.” She pointed under the stairs, and after another moment frowning at her, apparently speechless, he swung around and strode back across the floor to the foreign barrels. She followed more slowly, hugging the blanket around her.
“These ones?” he said, slapping the side of one.
“Yes, but here’s the thing. They’ve been here. They must have come last night when I was at Kate’s, for there are two less barrels than before.”
“Then at least they’re moving them,” he said uneasily, “although they could come back at any time.” He gave the large barrel a push, wobbling it on the floor. “You know, this feels wrong.”
He delved into the capacious pocket of his coat and retrieved a penknife, with which he began to work off the top of the barrel.
“Won’t they notice?” she asked uneasily.
“I can’t see that it matters. They just need to get them to wherever they’re needed. And they know we won’t tell the authorities for fear of implicating your family.”
He pried off the lid, which fell on the floor.
She stepped closer. “Brandy?” she hazarded. “Or wine?”
“Neither,” he said slowly, dipping one finger inside.
By the light of the candle, she peered in at what looked like white powder. “What on earth…?”
Tamar sniffed the grains on his finger, then touched them with his tongue, before raising his eyes to hers. “Gunpowder.”
“Gunpowder?” Serena moved closer until she stood beside him, staring at the harmless looking contents. “Dear God, why would anyone store gunpowder in our cellar? Surely they can’t mean to blow up the castle! Why would they do that? I know Braithwaite has recently gone into politics, but no one can hate him for that yet.”
“In any case, they’re taking it somewhere else,” Tamar said, dragging his hand through his hair.
“Or they mean to destroy more than one place. How much damage would this amount of gunpowder do?”
“I don’t know.” Absently, Tamar picked up the lid of the barrel and began to fit it back on. “We can’t talk about it here, and you certainly can’t sleep here.”
Under her slightly bemused gaze, he strode across the room and seized her pillow and the other blanket from the floor. The keys to the cellar and to the side door, which must have got tangled in the bedding, clattered to the floor. Serena hastened to retrieve them, then took up the candle and led the way upstairs and out into the courtyard. She locked the door while Tamar scanned the darkness for signs of anyone approaching or even watching. Apparently, he saw nothing out of the ordinary, for he followed her round to the side door without a word.
As she unlocked the side door, he said quietly, “We need to talk about this. We can’t keep gunpowder to ourselves.”
“I know.” She sighed, then folded one arm quickly across her stomach to muffle it’s ill-mannered rumbling. “Sorry, I’m starving, suddenly.”
“Me, too.”
She hesitated, then, opening the door wide, she said, “Come down to the kitchen. There’s always something in the larder and no one will be there at this time of night.”
“I can’t,” he said with flattering regret. “If I’m found there, you’ll be ruined.”
“Nonsense. I’ll cast all the blame on Rosie the kitchen maid.”
His breath caught on a laugh. “No, you won’t.”
“I won’t need to. Kitchens are innocent, and you could be there for anyone. Unless you’re discovered here by the door carrying my bedding.”
He stepped inside with alacrity, and she closed the door and locked it before leading the way through the various darkened rooms toward the main entrance hall. In the final room, the library, she pointed at the shadowy sofa to signal he should leave her pillow and blanket there. Then, she tripped across the hall toward the back of the house, through the servants’ door and downstairs to the kitchen.
There, it was cozy and warm, with heat still radiating from the stove. She lit two lamps from her candle and blew it out before walking to the larder in search of nourishment. Tamar, still silent, seemed to watch her every move, which was disconcerting as well as curiously arousing. Her whole body tingled when she remembered the heated embrace in the cellar.
“Cold chicken?” she suggested. “And there’s most of a loaf and some fruit. Oh, and look, there’s still chocolate cake! Cook makes the most delicious chocolate cake. We had it for tea.” Aware she was babbling, she bit her lip, picking up the plates containing the chicken and the cake and turning.
Tamar stood right behind her. Her surprised gaze clashed with his heated one, but he only took the plates from her and walked away to lay them on the table. She followed with the bread and butter.
“Water or ale?” she asked prosaically.
“Water, if you please.”
She set down two cups with the plates and sat at one end of the table. He sat in the chair on her right.
“Who do we tell?” she asked, before the gunpowder took second importance in her mind, well behind his presence. “Mr. Winslow, the magistrate? Or Major Doverton at the barracks?”
“Both, probably.” He picked up the knife and hastily carved several slices of chicken. “But I shouldn’t be involved, for your sake. I’ve no reason to be poking about your cellar.”
“I’ll get Paton to discover it, and then we can send word to everyone.” She frowned, helping herself to the chicken he politely offered, and then reaching for the bread. “Only I still don’t know who stole Paton’s key.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. It could have been anyone, not necessarily one of the servants here. He probably keeps it on a chain with his other keys and takes the whole lot with him to Blackhaven or Carlisle, or wherever else he goes.”
“He does,” she admitted. “I asked him. But it doesn’t rule out our people either. After all, someone must have come up with the idea of using our cellar.”
“We can worry about that later,” Tamar said firmly. “The first thing we have to do is get the gunpowder away from here before it blows up the castle—whether or not anyone means it to.”
She shivered. “I can’t quarrel with that.”
“I’ll watch the door until first light,” Tamar said. “And then you must get your servants to—” He broke off, hearing what she did, the soft shuffle of feet on the stairs.
In alarm, he scanned the kitchen for hiding places, but Serena touched his arm to make him stay. She’d already recognized the whispering voices. And then, Maria and Alice appeared at the foot of the stairs, wearing only their nightgowns and wrappers, and highly indignant expressions.
“Serena!” Alice exclaimed in outrage. “You’re finishing the chocolate cake!”
“I knew you were up to something!” Maria said bitterly.
As one, their attention shifted from the cake to Lord Tamar, and their eyes widened.
“Serena?” Maria said, hurrying across to her, Alice trotting at her heels. “What…? Who is…?”
“This is Lord Tamar and he’s perfectly safe,” Serena said in as down-to-earth a manner as she could “He is helping me solve a mystery.”
Alice looked quite relieved, although Maria remained unconvinced. “Yes, well, I’m fairly certain Mama will have a fit of the vapors if she finds out he’s helping you in the kitchen at two o’clock in the morning.”
“Which is why we mustn’t tell her,” Serena said. “Or anyone else for that matter, for I doubt they would understand either. Um, Lord Tamar, allow me to present my sisters, Lady Maria and Lady Alice.”
Tamar half-stood to bow. “Very glad to make your acquaintance,” he said, apparently accepting the situation in his stride. “Pull up a chair. Have some chocolate cake before your sister consumes it all.”
It seemed to be just the right manner, for even Maria who, on the cusp of sixteen, was obsessed with matters of etiquette, didn’t try to curtsey in her night rail. Instead, she commanded, “Spoons!” to Alice and threw herself into the chair on Serena’s other side.
“Did you meet Lord Tamar at the ball last night?” Alice demanded, all but throwing a spoon at her sister in her hurry to get to the cake.
“Well, I saw him there,” Serena admitted. “But we’d met before.”
“In London?”
“No,” Tamar said cheerfully. “Here at Braithwaite. I was trespassing in order to paint, and Lady Serena thought I was a new gardener.”
“You do look a bit like a gardener,” Alice allowed.
“That’s because I’ve been crawling through earth and hedges to spy on your cellar.”
“What’s in the cellar?” Maria asked, clearly intrigued in spite of herself.
“Illicit brandy,” Alice said scathingly.
“Gunpowder,” Serena said, deciding honesty was best at this point.
Silence greeted her. The girls’ mouths fell open.
Then a voice called from the top of the stairs. “Maria? Alice, are you there?”
“Miss Grey,” Alice said in dismay. “Now we are in the basket.”
“Nonsense,” Serena said. The night had become so unreal that she was happy to see anyone. She raised her voice. “Have you come for chocolate cake, Miss Grey?”
“Oh yes!” That was Helen’s voice rather than Miss Grey’s, swiftly followed by an enthusiastic patter of feet on the stairs. Helen’s small figure almost skidded into the chair beside Tamar, before the governess had even reached the foot of the stairs.
Tamar passed Helen what was left of the cake.
“Thank you,” she beamed, halving the cake with his knife. “Um…who are you?”
“Tamar. Who are you?”
“Helen.”
“And this is Miss Grey,” Serena pronounced, “who is now sworn to secrecy.”
Miss Grey, a large shawl over her nightgown, stood at the kitchen door, apparently stunned. “What are you all doing here at this hour?” she demanded.
“Cake,” Helen said happily. “We saved you a piece.”
Miss Grey straightened her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I cannot imagine that the countess, your mother, would countenance a nighttime feast in the kitchen with a strange man, even for Cook’s chocolate cake.”
“You’re right,” Serena agreed. “She wouldn’t. But this is an emergency. I assure you it wasn’t preplanned, or we would, of course, have included you.”
Miss Grey emitted a sound that might have been choked back laughter. Serena smiled at her encouragingly.
“We heard a noise and came downstairs,” Maria explained, “and then we followed the noise to the kitchen where we found Serena and Lord Tamar eating the cake.”
“Naturally, you had to have your share,” Miss Grey said dryly. “Well, your clattering in the passage woke Helen who thought there were intruders in the house and came to tell you, Maria, only you weren’t in bed, so she woke me in panic.”
“Please sit down, Miss Grey,” Serena begged. “You might help us with our problem.” She turned to Tamar. “Miss Grey is extremely clever.”
“But not subject to flattery,” the governess retorted. “And if I sit with you, it makes me complicit and more likely to keep this from your mother. Which I can’t, Lady Serena.”
“Not if she asks,” Serena agreed. “That wouldn’t be right. But Lord Tamar is here in all innocence to help us with a problem.”
“What problem?” Miss Grey challenged at once. Clearly, she didn’t believe a word of it.
“Gunpowder,” Alice said, pulling out a chair for her. “In our cellar.”
Miss Grey moved and sank into the chair, blinking at the small piece of cake that Helen shoved in front of her. “You had better tell me,” she said with resignation.